Twitter Gets Blitzed Out of Lubbock

Unless you are a college football fan (hang in there social media geeks, we’ll get to your stuff soon enough ) you probably wouldn’t even have a clue what this post is about. Honestly, unless you are a Texas Tech student or fan or resident of Lubbock, TX you may not know what a Red Raider is. One thing for certain though that more folks in the social media world will know about them because their coach, Mike Lynch, has banned Twitter usage from his team completely.

That’s right – banned. Not limited or restricted – just banned. Oh, you say, there can’t be any teeth in that policy. How could he possibly enforce that? Fear might work since he has already suspended one player indefinitely from the team because of breaking the rule. If there is any question, Mashable reports

Following a few suspect tweets by team members, Coach Mike Leach has announced that Texas Tech players are now banned from Twitter altogether. SportingNews also reports that one of the offending Twitterers, offensive lineman Brandon Carter, was “suspended indefinitely for violating team rules and his Twitter page was nowhere to be found.”

Honestly, I am at a loss on this one. Here is one of the tweets that Carter floated

My hope is that there is more than this tweet used to suspend someone like this kid indefinitely. There was no finger pointing except at himself so that seems to be harsh. I will say that there could be more to this since this was the only tweet from Carter that was shown.

All of this points back to the need for organizations from companies to sports teams and all stops in between to understand that the world has changed. Whether it’s for the better or not is not the debate. Right now, it is just a fact that it has. Everyone is going to have to be definitive in their stance but there may need to be a little flexibility moving forward like the SEC (Southeastern Conference) did recently regarding the use of social media in any form as it relates to the events that are in a college stadium in the league. I did a double take on that one because it is just asinine to even think it let alone say it.

We have seen social media in sports be addressed by the NFL and other colleges in other sports. We have seen social media addressed in a variety of ways by companies and organizationsworldwide as well. My question is are we any closer to actually understanding what the implications of using or banning social media will be in the near and long term?

After Larry Eustachy pictures were posted on the internet years ago, ADs didn’t tell coaches to stop taking pictures, just maybe not pictures at bars, etc.
.-= Jacinta´s last blog ..Sports Teams: Times Have Changed, Adapt! =-.

Mark M.

Boy the technophiles love to get worked up about there technologies….

Let’s look at the context guys! I think the main point here is that most football coaches are interested in one thing; WINNING Games! And they have more important things to attend to rather than “coaching” their players on what to tweet!? So you can’t blame the guy for wanting to minimize any distractions during the season. You also have to agree with coach Leach’s motives since we’ve already seen countless evidence of sports+twitter-related distractions.

http://www.crearecommunications.co.uk Luci

This is just silly! Banning a player from playing due to, of all things, Twitter seems harsh. Granted there is only one Tweet available, but teams need to adapt to the world as it changes. If the coach has a problem with what they said on Twitter, surely it would have made more sense to lay down a couple of ground rules instead?
.-= Luci´s last blog ..How to Choose an SEO Company =-.

Ted

It’s the type of behavior you would expect from a school that hired Bobby Knight after he was fired from IU.

http://CPASiteSolutions.com/ Kenny Marshall

Blaming Twitter is just about the lamest coaching cop-out to excuse poor team performance I’ve ever heard.

From the tenor of the offending tweet he clearly has some morale issues too.

Why not cut the bull and just tell the players the truth. This coach will find a way suspend you if you do anything that might reflect publicly on the crappy job he’s doing.